


Thou Best and Dearest

by Thistlerose



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-27
Updated: 2011-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-15 03:38:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scotty didn't want to know about the fates of his friends, but when he runs into Spock, he can't help asking about one.  Set after the TNG episode "Relics."  Knowledge of the episode really helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thou Best and Dearest

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [汝之珍爱](https://archiveofourown.org/works/883868) by [Christywalks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Christywalks/pseuds/Christywalks)



> Written for [Scotty Fest 2011](http://thistlerose.livejournal.com/1254379.html?style=mine)

Leonard McCoy dies at the respectable age of 145. Starfleet honors him and his contributions with a memorial service in San Francisco, in view of the medical facility where he spent so many years as director, following his tours on the _USS Enterprise_. A few days later, the doctor’s family and close friends hold their own, more private ceremony, on the banks of the Chattahoochee River, where Leonard fished and swam as a boy, where he taught his daughter to fish and swim, and who in turn taught her children, and her children’s children.

Standing off to the side so as to be inconspicuous, Montgomery Scott watches as Joanna McCoy spills her father’s ashes into the slow-moving current. A sigh rises in his throat, fans his lips, as the air takes some of that fine white powder and the rest is carried away by water. He’s a little surprised that McCoy would have opted for cremation, given the doctor’s professed disdain for dematerialization. The two aren’t remotely similar, it’s true, but…

Ah, well. It doesn’t matter now, does it?

“Fare thee well, old friend,” Scotty murmurs. To the man standing quietly beside him he adds, “I’d assumed he’d died years ago. I’d assumed you all had. That’s why I never thought to contact ye after they pulled me out of the _Jenolan_ ’s transporter buffer. Seventy-five years…” He shakes his head. “I might’ve said goodbye to the lad in person.”

“In all likelihood,” says Spock, “he would have thought you were a ghost. In the end, he was half-convinced I was a ghost. Although … perhaps he was not serious. He seemed perfectly lucid when he asked if I were the Devil, and if I had come to collect his soul.”

Scotty steals a glance at Spock and is surprised to find the thin lips pulled downward. “I grieve with ye, Mister Spock, so I do. And I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

In response, Spock pulls his travel cloak more tightly about his shoulders, though it’s a warm autumn day, and says, “Would you care to take a walk with me, Captain Scott?”

Scotty looks over at Joanna and her numerous progeny. There’s nothing he feels comfortable saying to her right now, and in truth, he’d like to be away from this place. If he is a ghost - and he certainly feels like one - he has no wish to trouble the living.

“Aye, let’s take a walk.”

Later afternoon sunlight filters through the gold-tipped leaves, making patterns on the rough path that winds and twists along the riverbank. Spock is absolutely silent as he moves, but to Scotty, the earth seems to sigh with each ponderous footstep he takes. Twigs snap and pebbles skitter away, to land with tiny _plops!_ in the river below. He has moments like this every so often, when he feels half-buried by his own body. A result of seventy-five years in a transporter buffer, no doubt. Though it might, he acknowledges ruefully, have something to do with his girth.

When they’ve gone a little ways, Spock says, “I do not know how much you know about what has transpired since your disappearance aboard the _Jenolan._ ”

“I know there are Klingons in Starfleet now,” Scotty says, recalling his initial shock at seeing Lieutenant Worf aboard the _Enterprise_ D. “That’s new.”

“Indeed, though hardly common. Despite numerous peace treaties, the relationship between the Federation and the Klingon Empire remains, shall we say, rocky.”

“No surprise there, Captain Spock.”

“These days I prefer the title ambassador.”

“Aye, sorry.”

“An apology is not required.”

“Ah. Sorry - never mind.”

Spock stops and places his hand against the rough reddish bark of a tree. He tips his head back, looking up at the branches and the bright leaves. Scotty watches him for a moment, then says, “I’m keen to know where ye’ve been for the past three-quarters of a century. As for the others - ye know who I mean - unless there’re alive…”

“They are not.”

A chill sweeps up Scotty’s spine, and his scalp tingles. There’s sorrow - but he feels oddly detached from it.

“They led good, long lives,” Spock says. “All of them.”

 _All but one,_ Scotty thinks, _all but Kirk, who led a good life but not a long one._ He and Chekov were there when Kirk died aboard the _Enterprise_ -B. It doesn’t feel that long ago. “There’s no need to tell me more,” he says. And maybe that’s true. Maybe there is no need. But that doesn’t stop him from blurting, “But Nyota--”

Spock turns and looks at him, one eyebrow raised.

Scotty flushes. Seventy-two years old he is - never mind those seventy-five years wasted in that transporter buffer - and he can still blush like a wee lad. “Commander Uhura, that is.”

“Admiral Uhura,” Spock corrects him mildly.

“Admiral Uhura. You don’t say. Well, I’m not surprised. The lass always did have a good head on her shoulders.” He waits for Spock to say something, but his companion only watches him expectantly. “So,” Scotty continues, glancing away, “she led a good, long life, then, did she?”

“As I have said.”

“Children? Grandchildren?”

“Nieces and nephews,” Spock says. “Though, as I understand it, there are many in Starfleet Intelligence who regarded her - who still regard her, I should say - as a mother figure. She was well loved, and continues to be well honored. I was … not there for her, as I was for Doctor McCoy. Even if I had known, it would not have been possible. I was deeply involved in a project at that point, one that made communication with Starfleet next to impossible, and could not have extracted myself. Nevertheless, I know that she was not alone. And that she was loved and honored.”

Spock’s voice has an odd timbre to it, now. Without looking at his eyes, Scotty can’t tell what he might be thinking. The phrase _choked up_ comes to mind, but he dismisses it. Spock? Surely not, even after all these years.

And yet, here he is, on the banks of the Chattahoochee River. Is this logical?

“I’m glad,” Scotty says, his own voice thick. And he is, he supposes, though again, there’s that odd detachment.

Nyota.

He can see her lovely dark eyes so clearly when he closes his own. He can almost hear the sweet sound of her voice. It’s funny, they spent so many years tiptoeing around each other on the _Enterprise_ , but it wasn’t until after the ship was decommissioned that they finally began to be honest about the depths of their feelings. Maybe it was because they needed a new start. Without the ship…

She was his first love, the _Enterprise_ \- no bloody A, B, C, or D - perhaps his dearest love. But Nyota Uhura might have been his last love, his lasting love, if only they’d had more time.

The irony makes his mouth twist in a bitter smile.

As if from far away, he hears Spock say, “I do not believe that she ever gave up hope that you and the crew of the _Jenolan_ would be found alive. She spoke to me once - sixteen years, five months, and fourteen days ago, to be precise - about the possibility that--”

“No more,” Scotty mutters. “I beg ye, Spock, tell me no more.” He should never have asked. Information of this sort is like a drug. If he doesn’t cut himself off now, he may not be able to.

“Very well.”

They stand quietly after that, as a breeze begins to stir the air and the sunlight on their path turns a deeper shade of gold. Scotty watches the river as it moves unhurriedly past their feet. He begins to think of time as a river, carrying them all inexorably along to the sea. For a while - a _long_ while - he ran aground, and stayed stuck there while nearly everyone he knew and loved kept going.

 _I’d not have given up on you neither, lassie._

But what if she had found him, brought him back in time to witness her twilight years? Would that really have been better?

 _Aye._ To hold her small, sweet hand just one more time - that would have been worth all the pain of imminent separation.

But there’s nothing he can do now except keep going. And so he shall, aboard the _Goddard_ , a gift from Captain Picard. It’s as good a ship as any, he supposes. And he has seventy-five years of advances in warp core engineering to catch up on. As if sensing his resolve, Spock says, “We must make our own farewells soon, Captain Scott. I would tell you more about my activities on Romulus, but I am afraid there is no time.”

“That’s the truth. There’s never enough time when you need it, and when you don’t, it seems, there’s always too much.”

“I cannot disagree with your assessment of the situation,” Spock says. “Shall we start back?”

“Aye, but let’s not go back the way we came.” He doesn’t think Joanna and her family will still be there, but just in case--

“Agreed,” Spock says with a vehemence that surprises Scotty.

He glances at the river again. _Dust and sunlight on water, that’s all we really are. Perhaps Vulcans don’t care to be reminded of that either._

And then they set off.

1/26/2011


End file.
